Peter Staddon chat addendum: MOULIN ROUGE DTS QUESTION (1 Viewer)

[Ronald Epstein]

Peter informed me that one of the answers he gave
to last evening's question by Hakan Powers concerning
the alleged Moulin Rouge DTS defect was indeed
answered but somehow did not get posted.
I have updated the chat transcript to reflect Peter's
answer, and you can bet that I am going to post the
original question and his new response below...

(HakanPowers) Good morning (!) Peter, thanks for joining us today! What are the chances of an anamorphic Wing Commander ever seeing the light of day? also, did the situation with the problematic DTS track on Moulin Rouge ever get solved?
(peterstaddon) Wing Commander has had it's time on DVD, there will never be another version. The Moulin rouge DTS synch issue has been a bit of a puzzle to us, DVCC and DTs. After we heard the reports of problems we pulled 250 samples of the title from random manufacturing batches and tested them. We were not able to find a synch problem in normal usage. The only way we could get a synch problem to occur was to start the disc with one of the 5.1 tracks - either dolby or DTS - and play it for at least 10 minutes, and then switch the audio to the other 5.1 format using the remote. If you play the title from beginning to end with either DTS or Dolby selected we were unable to replicate any synch issues.I think I posted about this some time back.

Hope that helps!

 

[DaViD Boulet]

He doesn't mention what brands of DVD players they used. I doubt the sync issue has anything to do with particular "batches" of the DVD. It seems to have more to do with the paticular model DVD player one has...and the problem is consistent with *all* Moulin Rouge DVDs on that player.
I'll lend him my Panny rp91. He and the others can see very quickly how the synch problems looks!
There's no secret as the brands of DVD players that have exhibited the problem. Fox should make an effort to test the disc on those players. If they did and still did not see a problem...that's a different story, but the above statements don't seem to indicate that (it seems rather they were focusing on certain discs having a problem rather than certain models of DVD players).
dave

 

[Brendon]

David,
As one of the people with this particular title/player combo problem, I'm sad that Fox have been unable to determine the problem.
However it is *very* gratifying to read that both Mr. Staddon and Fox took the problem raised and acted upon it. Whilst it is possible the problem is player specific, is there not the posibility that even within certain models that there may be firmware differences that could account for the problem ?
It is also possible that Fox may observe the problem if they use the players highlighted in the Potential Moulin Rouge DTS Problem thread. I would expect that this would involve pulling people away from existing Quality Assurance work on new titles, unless Fox employ QA folk to sit around idle Even if the problem was observed and it's cause identified there is no guarantee that a repressing would be offered or even viable.
I am not attempting to dismiss the problem. I think this may just be one of those times that we're not going to get the answer we want.
And should Mr. Staddon be lurking and reading this, I for one am thankful that the matter was taken seriously and looked into. Cheers!
Brendon

 

[Carlo_M]

Hmmm, I have an RP91 and the DTS of MR plays fine on it.

I've seen what Quality Control people have to do at DVD mastering facilities - it's very akin to QC for SOFTWARE (think Microsoft software and if they've ever released a version free of bugs), rather than say mastering a VHS tape. Just because there's a problem, even one seemingly as widespread as this one, doesn't make it easy to diagnose...or even diagnosable at all! There's so many different components to a DVD player, and so many steps to decoding, that unless it's a major FUBAR error in mastering, some of these glitches are nearly impossible to track down.

I'm willing to cut Peter and Fox a break on it (partially I guess because I don't have the error) based on their excellent track record and their care for the customer.

 

[Patrick Sun]

There's always the chance that upgrading the firmware in the Panny RP91 might help with the dts lip sync problem. The latest version was Version 2.50 for the firmware IIRC.

 

[David Lambert]

Patrick, what's the easist way to get a firmware upgrade for a Panasonic player?

 

[Dave Miller]

Patrick,

I second David's question: "What's the easist way to get a firmware upgrade for a Panasonic player?"

I need details.

Peace,

DM

 

[Joseph S]

I don't know if it corrects the problem, but here's the link.
RP91 Firmware Upgrades at AVS
Update: AVS appears to be down at the moment. 12/3/02 10:19EST

 

[LarryH]

I think it's high time Panasonic made the firmware upgrade for the RP-91 available to the general public. Since it can obviously be done by knowledgeable consumers, surely Panasonic can figure out how to do it. My dealer certainly is unaware of any such upgrade. Panasonic should follow the example of Pioneer which has made available a free upgrade for their DVR-7000.

Maybe Fox can tell us which players they used which did NOT show the DTS error on Moulin Rouge.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

FYI, my RP-91 has been upgraded to firmware version 250, and there is no apparent lip synch issue that I can determine with the DTS track on Moulin Rouge.

It is nice to see Fox listen to customer issues and take the time to investigate potential problems, even when they are difficult to isolate.

 

[TonyD]

i have version 250 and get the synch problem.

 

[Malcolm R]

No problems on my Panasonic A-112.

While I'm a huge fan of DTS, as long as everyone can play the the DD track without errors I doubt Fox will issue a recall/corrected disc. When Universal did it on Jurassic Park, that was a disc that was specifically marketed as a "DTS Edition."

 

[GlennH]

Just FYI, if you have the Panasonic RP-91 and want to check what firmware version it has:

With one hand, simultaneously press the STOP, PAUSE, and OPEN/CLOSE buttons on the RP-91 face, while ...

With the other hand, press 7 on the remote.

The firmware version will be the last 3 digits shown on the RP-91 face display.

 

[Hakan Powers]

I was wondering why I never saw an answer to my question.. didn't want to raise the issue but I'm glad Peter did !

Thanks

 

[Carlo_M]

Yup, see the varying results from the same players w/ the same firmware? This is what I mean by these things being very hard to diagnose. I'm actually going to try to upgrade my firmware (don't have Moulin Rouge probs, but have other probs w/ subtitles on some anime discs). Here goes nothing!

 

[Jeff Bamberger]

I have played some of the key sequences (I.e., Your Song) on my Panasonic A120 purchased in 1998 (haven't played straight through yet) and I could not notice any problems.

 

[Felix Martinez]

After we heard the reports of problems we pulled 250 samples of the title from random manufacturing batches and tested them. We were not able to find a synch problem in normal usage.

How in the name of Staddon can it be so difficult to see/hear what scores of observant consumers have been commenting on for over a year now?? This is disingenuous at best.

All QC'ers have to do is pick up the excellent Panny RP-91, Dennon, or other players exhibiting the problem (does anyone at Fox read this Forum? That would be helpful!) and just play the DTS track from beginning to end under "normal usage." Not that hard to see.

Hoping for the best,
Felix

 

[Carlo_M]

Felix, re-read the posts again, this is not a simple problem!

If you play the title from beginning to end with either DTS or Dolby selected we were unable to replicate any synch issues.I think I posted about this some time back.

I have a Panasonic RP91 and have played this movie with three different firmwares (and yes I love it that much). I have noticed *no* sync issues with the DTS track. I haven't tried the switch-on-the-fly that Peter describes but while watching it straight through (a couple of times pausing for bathroom breaks) I have not had sync issues. Yet I do not doubt others have had problems! You have to think of DVD problems as less black-and-white and more gray-area, more like PC software than VHS tapes. Anyone in the software industry can tell you how terribly tricky it can be to pinpoint a problem. Hell Microsoft releases buggy product all the time that can work flawlessly and fail catastrophically on two identically set up PCs!

I think Peter and his staff did as much as they could do (given that they are working on a lot of other things after all)...

 

[Felix Martinez]

Felix, re-read the posts again, this is not a simple problem! I have a Panasonic RP91 and have played this movie with three different firmwares (and yes I love it that much). I have noticed *no* sync issues with the DTS track.

You are extremely fortunate - as a Panny RP-91 owner, you are definitely in the minority as I re-read the posts since last December.

Like you, I adore both the film (and the RP-91)!

I stand by my comments.

Maybe newer pressings don't have the prob(?)

Cheers,
Felix

 

[jonathan_little]

I'm unable to change the audio track while the film is running using the remote. My Pioneer DV-440 shows the little icon that indicates the function is blocked by the software. In fact, I don't know of one dts title in my collection which will allow switching the audio track on the fly. What am I missing here?

I was hoping that perhaps the upcoming single disc release would resolve this issue. Since Fox can't even replicate it, I guess I shouldn't plan on that happening. I'm curious as well if different setups were used during Fox's tests on this title.

Not only is this problem an embarrassment for Fox, but for THX certification label as well. I need to warn people before I show them this DVD, "OK, this is the best way to hear the film, but unfortunately this soundtrack has some lip-sync issues. You've been warned."